Biography
Måns Olsson
Swedish fiddler and singer, born 1865, died 1961, from Mattmar in Jämtland.
He emigrated to the United States after working as a conductor on the Swedish railway. In the United States, he worked, among other things, as a shepherd and miner. However, he moved home to Sweden and Jämtland ten years later, but in 1906 he returned to the United States to accompany a folk dance group on tour in the Swedish countryside together with fiddler Mårten Andersson.
The folk dance group was called "Skansens nationaldansare" and the tour – which lasted for over a year – was a success. In large cities such as Chicago, thousands of audiences watched the performances of the national dancers. Since Måns Olsson was already familiar with the USA, he also had to shoulder the role of tour leader. A profession he also tried in Sweden. During a period he traveled around Sweden and Norway and - typical of the entertainment of the time - performed in front of audiences "The giant Halvar Sjöström from Mattmar, seven feet tall, born of small parents". However, the success seems to have failed – the audience thought that Halvar Sjöström was far too short to be marketed as a giant...
Måns Olsson was a talented violin player who was active in the violinist movement until his death. In the only preserved recordings with him in the Swedish Music Archives' collections, however, he does not play the violin but instead strums his songs. A technique of using the voice as an instrument to perform instrumental music that Måns Olsson mastered in a very skillful way.
Incidentally, the recordings with Måns Olsson were used in one of the probably first recordings where sampling technology was used in Sweden. On the album Äventyr i jazz og folkmusik, jazz pianist Jan Johansson uses one of the recordings with Måns Olsson in an arrangement of a "Lapp-Nils polska".
He emigrated to the United States after working as a conductor on the Swedish railway. In the United States, he worked, among other things, as a shepherd and miner. However, he moved home to Sweden and Jämtland ten years later, but in 1906 he returned to the United States to accompany a folk dance group on tour in the Swedish countryside together with fiddler Mårten Andersson.
The folk dance group was called "Skansens nationaldansare" and the tour – which lasted for over a year – was a success. In large cities such as Chicago, thousands of audiences watched the performances of the national dancers. Since Måns Olsson was already familiar with the USA, he also had to shoulder the role of tour leader. A profession he also tried in Sweden. During a period he traveled around Sweden and Norway and - typical of the entertainment of the time - performed in front of audiences "The giant Halvar Sjöström from Mattmar, seven feet tall, born of small parents". However, the success seems to have failed – the audience thought that Halvar Sjöström was far too short to be marketed as a giant...
Måns Olsson was a talented violin player who was active in the violinist movement until his death. In the only preserved recordings with him in the Swedish Music Archives' collections, however, he does not play the violin but instead strums his songs. A technique of using the voice as an instrument to perform instrumental music that Måns Olsson mastered in a very skillful way.
Incidentally, the recordings with Måns Olsson were used in one of the probably first recordings where sampling technology was used in Sweden. On the album Äventyr i jazz og folkmusik, jazz pianist Jan Johansson uses one of the recordings with Måns Olsson in an arrangement of a "Lapp-Nils polska".